At the end of the summer of 1859 one that was surely hot, dusty, and full of guys in wide-brimmed hats sweating under their shirt collars a small but determined group of gold prospectors decided to venture into Willow Creek Valley, a remote place in northern California whose only claim to fame was that, until then, there was absolutely nothing there except trees, rocks, silence, and the small but persistent possibility of finding something buried in the ground that could change your life.
"I want visitors to have a truly multi-sensory experience," said Key Jo Lee, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD). "To take in what it means to be in this space, to hear the wind, to touch the coldness of the stone... you are actually echoing history and making a new history in this place."